I’ve been distrohopping for a while now, and eventually I landed on Arch. Part of the reason I have stuck with it is I think I had a balanced introduction, since I was exposed to both praise and criticism. We often discuss our favorite distros, but I think it’s equally important to talk about the ones that didn’t quite hit the mark for us because it can be very helpful.
So, I’d like to ask: What is your least favorite Linux distribution and why? Please remember, this is not about bashing or belittling any specific distribution. The aim is to have a constructive discussion where we can learn about each other’s experiences.
My personal least favorite is probably Manjaro.
Consider:
- What specific features/lack thereof made it less appealing?
- Did you face any specific challenges?
- How was your experience with the community?
- If given a chance, what improvements would you suggest?
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Ubuntu. They’ve managed the worst of both worlds: like Debian, everything is old (though admittedly not as old), but unlike Debian, everything is broken/buggy/flakey. It’s the old-and-busted distro that I’m routinely told is “the only Linux we support”.
If Debian is not great as a desktop distro, it’s at the very least remarkably stable as a server distro. The sentiment extends somewhat to Ubuntu LTS. It could be better, but in terms of uptime and just working I can’t fault either distro.
I just now discovered why people are hating on Ubuntu pro by receiving a note that Ubuntu will not provide security updates for some apps it came with unless you activate Pro.
I think I’m done with Ubuntu on any personal machines.
Debian is a great desktop distro if you get your software using Flatpak, as anyone should be doing in every distro.
Don’t forget that Ubuntu was the first distro to both sell user data to Amazon, and show you ads in the terminal. But it seems like everyone forgets about it as soon as canonical goes “whoops, our bad, we didn’t think you’d mind, it’s opt in/out now”.
On top of that I’ve seen allegations that they’re illegally collecting data from Azure Ubuntu users to send them spam about Ubuntu enterprise.
I was an Ubuntu fan many moons ago. Then I fell in love with Mint when it was just all around a better version of Ubuntu.
Then I ended up with a new Windows laptop for years and forgot about Linux entirely. But this year, I’ve actually returned to Ubuntu. I like how it has a fresh and different look and it still performs well on my now aging laptop. Mint is always my go to recommendation to others, but I just wanted a different look than your standard Windows-like look that Cinnamon has. I was initially turned off way back when, when Ubuntu switched to Unity, but now a difference in look appeals to me. We’ll see if I get annoyed with Snaps or not. So far, everything has been running smoothly.
If there was a GNOME fork of Mint, I’d likely be using that. I get that you can technically install whatever desktop environment in whatever distro you want, but for compatibility sake, it’s best to roll with what your distro comes with.
I don’t have many issues on Ubuntu like you imply. It’s the reason why I stick with it despite snaps.
Pull out your pitchforks, debian.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good in a VM or a server, but it’s the worst Linux desktop experience I’ve ever had.
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Apt sucks, it’s the worst package manager imo (and I use Gentoo). Slow, bad a dependency resolution and apt-autoremove nuked my system both times I tried to use debian.
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It’s old. LTS is only good for servers, you cannot change my mind and I don’t see a reason to use sid or unstable, when I can use literally why other distro with a better prepare manager.
And it just does some bizarre things, like not setting up sudo with the graphical installer…
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I’m about to piss off a lot of people.
It’s Arch and Arch-derivatives. And I’m saying it as an Arch user, btw, and I actually love it.
Between the Big Three (Fedora, Debian, Arch), it is the least likely to have an official package for somewhat niche applications. If something is not available as a flatpak or appimage, I have to compile it from source or an AUR PKGBUILD, but we all know the dangers of doing that. Some software will just assume that it’s running on a particular disribution, usually Ubuntu. Some software will detect the distribution and straight-up refuse to work on Arch.
That being said, it would take a lot to make me switch to a stable point-release distribution. Arch’s advantages more than make up for the sub-par software support.
(actually, I lied. Fuck Canonical and *Ubuntu. And IBM.)
This is a balanced take in my opinion. Also an Arch user. Distrobox has helped remedy things somewhat.
Some software will just assume that it’s running on a particular disribution, usually Ubuntu. Some software will detect the distribution and straight-up refuse to work on Arch.
Name to blame, please.
Twingate Connector. The installer script only works if the OS uses either the APT or the DNF package manager, otherwise it exits. Fortunately it has many deployment methods, including Docker. I ended up using the systemd unit in a Debian container inside Proxmox.
Ubuntu / snaps
Anything Red Hat. Screw GPL corporatism.
Hey, they at least prioritise contributing upstream. Canonical is much worse.
For me personally: Something like Arch. I want to spend as little time as possible on installation and configuration, and I don’t want to have to read update notes or break my system. But I get that it’s great for some people, and their wiki is just next level!
In general: Ubuntu. It feels like I read something about Canonical causing trouble every other week, and don’t even get me started on snaps!
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Completely agree on both points. Canonical always acts against the spirit of open-source whenever they get the chance.
And while Arch is great, I prefer things that work out of the box.
Ubuntu: For shilling all kinds of profrietary garbage by default. If I wanted that I’d be on Windows.
Also the changes they make to GNOME make it worse, they take away what makes it good, the flow.
Exactly what I came here to say.
Prompt me for Ubuntu Pro once (in the GUI on first login)? Shame on you, but I’ll move past it.
Put an ad in the terminal every time I update my system though? Straight to jail.
Probably PoP_OS!. There isn’t anything wrong with the os itelf, my problem is rather that its often sugested as a beginer friendly distro which in my experience it absolutely isn’t. The amount of issues I encountered while trying to use it almost drove me away from Linux as a whole. (It was the first distro i tried) The time I spent trying to make everything work was comparable to Arch.
I realy like the idea and the DE they ship by default is one of the best ones I’ve seen (it’s like GNOME but in my opinion much better) but the bugs make it a terrible suggestion for new users.
I agree with you.
I don’t hate Manjaro’s developers, but they simply do not know what they are doing. They over promise and under deliver.
Manjaro. Its just Arch but worse
Ubuntu because they’ve the ability to great things and end up just delivering a buggy and mangled version of Debian with proprietary crap, spyware, snaps wtv. After all we’re talking about the distro that had ISOs on their download page with a broken installer multiple times.
I don’t hate them, but this hits hard. They are THE most influential distro for people outside of the community. They have by far the biggest user base and community, but instead of using this to collaborate with other distributions and specially with the freedesktop folks for the improvement of the commons, they have this culture of downstream work that rarely get the effort needed to be upstreamed. It’s usually “it’s good enough for us, so that’s where we’ll leave it”, and they end up with these weird solutions that only they use.
I’m going to mention two:
Manjaro. I’ve attempted to use Manjaro a few different times, and outside of a VM it just didn’t work properly; on my laptop it would boot loop for reasons I don’t understand, it had poor hardware support and optimization on a Raspberry Pi, and it didn’t last long on my desktop. It’s had its chances, I’m done trying.
I really did not hitch horses with Pop!_OS, and it’s almost entirely because Pop!_OS started at Gnome and kept fucking going. Just thinking about the two miserable weeks I spent trying to get Gnome to do anything is making me physically angry. Words like disobedient and belligerent come to mind when I think of what it’s like to use Pop!_OS. Linux Mint is designed to feel familiar to anyone coming from Windows. Pop!_OS feels like it’s designed to be the opposite of that, it deliberately doesn’t work the way you think it does. YOU have to conform to IT. And I FUCKING hate it. It is never welcome on my hardware ever again.
yep. i dont see a reason to use Manjaro when EndevourOs is basically the same, but better (and a nicer color theme!)
Why does endeavor OS describe itself as a terminal-centric OS?
That alone turns me off from using it. I try to avoid the terminal at all costs.
im pretty sure you can get by pretty well without the terminal, for the most part. although, it is arch based, and its kind of the point. no distro is for everyone.
its besides the point, but why dont u like the terminal?
its besides the point, but why dont u like the terminal?
Because it’s way harder to remember and use text commands than it is to navigate a GUI.
I also don’t like taking my hand off the mouse if I can avoid it.
I use Fedora as my primary desktop distro. It’s a sturdy base with relatively up-to-date packages from the repos. It doesn’t really push technology I consider undesirable, like Snaps. Even though I have to rely on RPMFusion for a number of proprietary parts, due to Fedora’s free software stance, I don’t have any particular qualms about that. I also increasingly use Flatpaks anyway.
When I used to use Reddit the /r/fedora community was helpful and welcoming.
One downside is because the kernel changes frequently, and I (sadly) own a Nvidia GPU, akmods runs very often. Another downside is sometimes that frequently changing kernel can cause issues. I think in the past year or two I’ve had two distinct occasions where a kernel upgrade caused my mounted shares to not mount correctly. Reporting an issue to upstream also takes quite some involvement, as I discovered when I had to create some Red Hat account to report an issue about the packaging of some software in a beta release of Fedora.
So all-in-all I would say Fedora is a strong distro. It is probably not the most beginner-friendly one, though, given how you have to dip your toes into RPMFusion and related challenges. It used to be worse, since DejaVu used to be the default font system-wide and you had to install a fonts package from COPR to make the system actually look pleasant. Since then they switched to Noto, which makes the font situation MUCH better.
On servers and VMs I use Debian because I do not have the patience to maintain a faster moving Fedora multiple times over. This is exacerbated by the awful defaults of Gnome, which I have to bend into shape with extensions. When Fedora 40 releases later this year I fully intend to reinstall from scratch since KDE Plasma 6 will be available.
edit: i misread the prompt and just talked about my favorite distro that i actively use. whoops.
My least favorite distro could be Manjaro if I actually used it, but it is Ubuntu because of how close it is to being a great distro. Snaps really soured me to that deal. Snapd and Snaps make it difficult to use in VMs, too, because now you have to over-commit resources for something that could and should be smaller and simpler. Debian stays winning, as usual.
I don’t think I’ve ever used Ubuntu for more than a month. I just don’t like the way it looks, how locked down everything is, and how hard it is to customize.
Manjaro always broke on me. I can’t even trust them to keep their SSL certs up to date.
Sorry Manjaro devs, no hate, I just got burned way too many times by this arch-not-arch frankendistro.
Been on it for the last two years. Never broke. Idk what’s going on
